So, today has been a series of highs and lows. Highs included visiting the town of Zywiec, home of the eponymous Polish beer, and discovering that at least half the town appears to be dedicated to its production. Sadly this also sowed the seeds of the day’s lowest point as we subsequently left Zywiec without touching a drop of the good stuff. Your correspondent’s view of the next 20km was obscured by tears of bitter disappointment. Zywiec was certainly not a waste however, as we visited the hospice, were entertained royally by the volunteers and treated to an impromptu harmonica performance upon arrival, departure, and most junctures in between. We gave the hospice two oxygen concentrators; they gave us a lavish lunch and quantities of baked goods of such epic deliciousness that I conclude we got the better end of the bargain.

Cycling has also been a series of highs and lows, this has been entirely due to the terrain which has alternated between the direction of up and the direction of down, thereby forcing anyone cycling upon it to do likewise. Your correspondent is reliably informed that one of the upward parts contained an incline of 13%, he is unsure of the exact meaning of this, but on balance thinks these are the sort of figures that only really look good on a bottle of wine. In truth however we should be grateful to have survived 70-odd miles of cycling given that at one stage our navigator, the appropriately named Killer, apparently concluded that the motorway represented the most efficient route between two points by bicycle, before being dissuaded by a chorus of panic-stricken cries delivered in a variety of languages. In fairness he may have been distracted by a route that alternated repeatedly between Poland and the Czech Republic making it progressively harder to identify exactly what country, let alone road system, we were in. Following a lovely dinner and a couple of beers (sadly not from BeerTown), a certain someone managed to get himself and his daughter locked out of their room... This part of the story to be continued...

Tomorrow takes us to Zakopane. The route covers about 70/80 km. Earlier today, one of our number, Charlie, presumably in some oblique reference to saddle-sores was heard to complain that he felt like he had, “a post up his arse”, at least it is to be hoped the complaint wasn’t literal, if it is, then given the Polish state’s propensity to lay cobbles on any surface larger than a coffee table, there is a chance that by tomorrow the post will be a permanent fixture.